Click here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A35673483

for 511+ comments, on above question, on the BBC’s excellent website and forum.

The Manchster Evening News has been running a poll for a few days on it’s website. Although addressed to City fans, anyone can vote (which raises a question …). You can see the poll on the right, here:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_city/

You can also see the result which as I type stands at 96% (it was 97% earlier) answering yes to the question “Would you like to see Sven stay at City”? 96/97%? If this were a “pro-Thaksin” result, I can only imagine the screams. Well, it turns out, that anyone can vote in this poll as many times as they like by taking five seconds to delete their cookies and page cache in Internet Explorer and re-load the page. Yet this poll has been reported all over the media and internet as having some basis in fact, without questions! So much so, that the head of the League Managers Association came out in support of Sven and actuallt cited this poll! Amazing.

There is a big on-line petition containing about 15,000 signatures (last time I checked). This petition has been cited as proof against Frank throughout the media and the internet. The problem with this petition is, it is open to anyone (like the poll), which means City fans, non-City fans who are trying to cause trouble, Frank’s political opponents in the UK or worldwide, and so on, furthermore, anyone can vote in this petition as many times as they like by simply giving a false email address! A false one! Not even a real, but different one than that a person might usually use! How reliable is THAT???

I’ll end with this: The worst Frank has done in this case is to make publicly ambiguous statments, and then fail to make a definite statement when the issue blew up. However, we are subject to daily leaks about private meetings, player rebellions, and finances from “sources” within City, and they all make Frank look bad! Not only that. Manchester City’s own website continues to reproduce stories from the British media that make Sven into a martyr, and Frank look like a foolish dictator. It makes no sense, does it? Frank the master of propaganda allowing his own clubs website to make him look foolish? Or does it?

Did you know there was a well-publicized protest outside Manchester City last week? Do you know how many of the 000s of outraged fans turned up?

10. Just ten. I know because I saw the photos taken by a man who went. Then on Sunday against Liverpool…not only were the protests half-hearted to say the least, they were also convenient as they were ALREADY going to be at the game.

There is supposed to be another protest in the next few days organized by a couple of official supporters clubs. I’ll make a prediction: it will be pathetic.

No one really knows what is going on, but in THIS case, it isn’t Frank who is manipulating things … at least not so far.

I’ll tell you the truth, more and more City fans are changing their mind about what has been going on over the last few days. Once emotions have calmed.

As you see, I have no clue about English football. I do have though about Thaksin.

Some posters in Man City forum referred to him as “Dr.”, in quite some respect as I understand.

Wonder how Frank’s doing at the moment.

BangkokDan

I do not know who in “Britain” (do you mean England?) calls him Dr., some do perhaps, but Manchster City fans refer to him as “Frank.” BTW, it’s the Premiership, or properly, the Premier League Title, or simply, the League Title. The “championship” is what used to be known as the second division.

I found him to be friendly, approachable and with a sense of humor too. He was keynote speaker at a leadership conference in Dubai with an audience of some pretty influential business leaders, and I am sure there would have been impressed with the ‘real’ Thaksin and not the one that is often portrayed in the media. Having said that I know he is very clever and is a PR master.
My interview will appear (in Thai) in the May edition of BusinessWeek Thailand – available from all good bookshops from May 6th. I will see if I can also put an English version somewhere.

Andrew/

I think TRT/PPP supporters in the countryside don’t vote them simply because they’re paid to do so. As you’ve said, it’s all about the populist policies which you may think are responsible for creating more personal debt. I agree with most of that, but my question is: is it fair to say that those supporters ‘tricked’ into voting Thaksin/PPP?

For me, the rural inhabitants have every good reason to vote for a party that finally pays so much attention to their well-being. These people were long ignored by mainstream politics. Parties used to promise to do this and that for them but never turned those words into reality. People were sick of those empty, ‘dream-selling’ promises and when TRT arrived – being the first government in Thai history to promise and eventually carry out government projects that gave true, real, hard benefits for the rural people – they responded by voting them even more overwhelmingly the second time around. I see the rural voters not as having been tricked into it, but as having taken a highly rational decision by voting someone who was most likely to protect their interests.

By staging a coup and drawing up this hugely flawed constitution, the elites simply conceded their defeat in the battle against Thaksin. Sadly, they have also denied the countryside people their chance to have a say in mainstream politics and to make their voice heard by those in power. If you think democracy was corrupt under Thaksin, I don’t see why a return to the old elitist & royalist way could solve the problem.

You have a lot to learn about Thaksin real meaning of democracy and how he (and his cronies) trick their own rural country people, for their own profit/benefit. They get quick cash from banks to borrow money and buy from their companies, but get indebted more and more. A vicious circle – and soon they ask again for debt relief.

This is not real help, this is corrupted superficial help to enrich those benefiting already.